Graham W Price's Blog

Many are shocked by the selfish actions of the BA strikers. Shocking their behaviour may be as they seek to satisfy their own self-interest at just about everyone else’s expense. But climb inside their heads and we’d no doubt find they consider their actions fully justified. Selfish behaviour is always justified by the perpetrator no matter how distorted that justification may be.

Such distortions are eased by pack mentality. The strikers are no doubt reasonable individuals. Most people are. But reasonableness can quickly disappear in favour of self-interest when we’re part of a group with shared motives. Pack mentality brings out the baser instincts of otherwise reasonable people, for the BA strikers a self-interested belief in their right to maintain generous pay and conditions despite their employer struggling to compete in an increasingly competitive market. 

And packs are all too easy to manipulate by power-motivated individuals who understand how to bring out those base instincts.  

All this is part of the ‘determined’ world in which we live. The strikers believe they’re right and are unquestionably doing the only thing they could be doing with the awareness they have  … an awareness at least partly determined by the influences I’ve mentioned. So there’s no point thinking they should have acted differently, if we’re using ‘should’ in a blaming way. They quite simply couldn’t have acted differently.

But they’re still responsible for their actions. And in a harsh world, responsibility takes little account of our actions being fully determined by our awareness at the time.  Blame is pointless as it thinks the past and present should have been different when it couldn’t have been. Responsibility is about the future. Society will hold the strikers responsible and accountable for their actions and they’ll no doubt suffer for it.

Many years ago I drove into a Tesco petrol station in Hammersmith that had no prices displayed on the leader board. I foolishly filled up without checking the price on the pump and then discovered it was 3p a litre above competition. I paid with no animosity as I knew they’d acted in the only way they could with the awareness they had at the time. But I held them accountable for their deception. I’ve driven past that station hundreds of times since and have never ventured onto the forecourt. They made £2.00 extra profit from me all those years ago and have since lost thousands of pounds worth of my business as a result.

I’ll never employ a BA striker. Many will probably eventually be made redundant by a contracting BA, damaged by their actions. They’ll receive no job from me. No doubt thousands of other employers will think the same. And they’re likely to be socially ostracised by many for years to come. They may try to hide their history. It won’t be that easy.

Genuinely selfish behaviour has its consequences which can be ruthless and inescapable. And in a determined world, none of it could be otherwise.

The strikers will probably come to regret their actions. They don’t need to. They should know they acted in the only way they could with the awareness they had at the time. But they’ll hopefully in time come to acknowledge responsibility for their actions. And part of that responsibility will need to be to accept the consequences, including any retribution their employer and society may vent on them.                         www.abicord.com/what-is-is